FKA twigs Presents Short Film: We Are The Womxn

Written by Vocalo Radio on July 9, 2020

FKA twigs x WePresent - We Are The Women 2 — *^{Photo by Ivar Wigan}*

The film We Are The Womxn documents FKA twigs in late 2019 as she performs at Atlana’s Afropunk Festival and Blue Flame (the city’s first Black strip club).

We Are The Womxn, directed by Ivar Wigan, summons the divine feminine and celebrates an environment in which womxn dance for each other and their own matriarchal energy. It’s the latest collaboration between FKA twigs and WePresent, WeTransfer’s editorial platform. You can watch it here, as well as their partnership for Practice, a short film diving into the physical and mental transformation twigs had to undertake for her GRAMMY-nominated music video “Cellophane.”

WP_FKATwigs2_PR_GIF_2 — *^{Gif courtesy of WeTransfer}*

This time around, the joint project explores twigs’s evolving artistry and deeper discovery of herself through the teachings of local womxn.

At the festival, twigs joined forces with Queen Afua, a healer and spiritual leader, to host a sacred moon dance in celebration of the womxn. Afterward, twigs led the womxn to Blue Flame. Scenes from all three are intertwined in the film to commemorate Atlanta’s dance community, empower womxn through dance and rituals, and re-root the art of pole dancing in spirituality.

FKA twigs x WePresent - We Are The Women 1 — *^{Photo by Ivar Wigan}*

As FKA twigs shared in a press release, “I decided to hold the second part of the all-female and femme sacred moon dance at Blue Flame, firstly to honor the heritage of pole dancing, but also to create a matriarchal dominance in a space that’s usually filled with, and run by, male energy.”

Fans of twigs might recall the singer’s own journey with pole dancing, which began after writing her heartbreakingly gorgeous song “Cellophane.” More than a year before the video for the single was shot, twigs had a visual desire to express the song through pole dancing and immediately began to train.

“My experience at the Blue Flame solidified that, although historically womxn are often pitched against each other for their looks or their assets by the patriarchy, when left to our own devices we are incredibly nurturing and healing for each other,” she said.

In the same press release, the teams for FKA twigs and WeTransfer encourage fans to donate to the Lysistrata and SWARM organizations, who provide care and support for sex workers in the U.S. and U.K., who have been particularly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.